FirstOntario Centre ranked 4th busiest venue in Canada

Have you been to the FirstOntario Centre this year? According to rankings released by Pollstar, there’s a good chance you have.

FirstOntario Centre, managed by Spectra, was ranked the 58th busiest arena according to Pollstar’s 2018 Mid-Year Top 200 venues in the world and the 4th in Canada. That’s up from the 2017 Pollstar Year-End Rankings the venue was ranked 106th in the world and 7th in Canada, after selling over 163,341 tickets in 2017.

Making things even more impressive, the Pollstar are based solely on ticket sales of live events and concerts and do not include ticket sales to the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs.

“The Spectra team here in Hamilton is truly proud of what we have been able to accomplish over the past five years and especially over the last six months,” said Spectra’s interim General Manager Tim Murphy in a release. “With our experience, incredible staff and relationships with key industry partners, especially Live Nation, Spectra has been able to continually build upon our success here in Hamilton year over year.”

Between January 1st and June 30th, FirstOntario Centre has so far welcomed over 141,423 guests. The first half of the year included numerous events including Avenged Sevenfold, Disney on Ice, Monster Jam, Cirque Du Soleil’s Crystal, Tim McGraw & Faith Hill, Shania Twain, and Kevin Hart.

Other events for the back half of 2018 at FirstOntario Centre include Deep Purple & Judas Priest on August 28th, the 2018 CCMA Awards on September 9th, BTS on September 20th, 22nd & 23rd, and Marvel Universe Live from October 18th to 21st.

The FirstOntario Concert Hall, formerly Hamilton Place, ended the first half of 2018 ranked as the 139th busiest theatre in the world and 7th in Canada.